Requiem for a Child
by astheblackrosewilts
Summary: Rodney McKay takes one last chance at reaching out. Kidfic, pre Atlantis, preteen Rodney


Summary – Rodney McKay takes one last chance at reaching out. Kidfic, pre Atlantis, pre-teen Rodney

Disclaimer – I don't own him when he's older and I didn't own him when he was any younger.

Rating – PG

**Requiem**

She'd been curious when he'd stumbled through the door, a tiny child, freezing cold, his fingers tightly clasping what she'd later found out was the money for his lesson.

Naturally she'd asked about his parents and was informed, rather tersely, that they were working, they'd dropped him off a little way away but they'd gone to work, they'd pick him up after his lesson and sure enough, when she'd checked the lists his name was on them.

So she'd taught him.

He practiced incessantly, perfecting the increasingly advanced assignments with ease. Faultlessly performing Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Schubert, Tchaikovsky…

Praise fell like honey from the lips of his teacher as her tiny charge mastered the music of the greatest composers in history.

This truly was a child every teacher dreams of.

And then, oh so hesitantly, he'd offered to show her some of his own compositions.

Slightly bemused, she'd agreed and then he'd started to play and she'd known.

And she'd been so angry. Because she thought she'd found an uncut diamond, still rough but nonetheless perfect.

And all she'd had was glass, cheap, common and possible to scope into whatever shape it was necessary.

Because the child that was now looking up at her, face blank, was a fake. He had to be.

And it was then that she'd explained.

His face had grown, if possible, even blanker, as he'd listened silently to her explanation of how there was no place in this profession for someone who faked their emotions. He needed to feel his music, he had to play what he knew. That there wasn't a place either in the world of music or with her for a nasty little liar who betrayed his soul and didn't believe in what he was writing.

He'd left without saying a word and against her protestations that his parents wouldn't be here yet. He'd even left his music behind and, against her better judgement, she'd picked it up and looked at it again.

She looked at the pages; each one signed 'Rodney McKay' in the handwriting of a child in a hurry. She couldn't imagine where he'd gotten it from, must have been something he heard somewhere and liked the sound of because, though the notes were different the emotions that came through were familiar and there was no way Rodney McKay could have produced them.

She stared uneasily at the door that he had just walked through mechanically and thought about how the payment for his lessons was always scraped, coppers obviously desperately counted. She hadn't asked, she'd just thought his family was not particularly well off and she'd admired them for allowing their son to learn despite this.

She thought about the bruises, Rodney McKay was clearly a child who spent a lot of time being beaten up by other children but that was just the way it was in schools, 'teaches them about later life,' her father had always said but then…

Rodney always did have a lot of injuries.

She thought about the way she'd only met his parents once and had introduced herself as Rodney's music teacher.

The surprised look on his mother's face when she'd mentioned music and the look that had come across his father's face as he'd casually enquired _exactly_ how many lessons Rodney had had now. The absolute terror in Rodney's eyes as his father's hand came to land on his shoulder… but it was gone so quickly that she'd written it off as a trick of the light.

But he hadn't shown up for a long time after that, she'd been worried but then he'd walked through the door as if nothing had ever happened, except for the cast on his leg… but he'd fallen down the stairs, he'd told her so.

Shaking her head she dismissed the thoughts and began to prepare for her next lesson, there was no way Rodney could have written that music.

Because there was no way such hatred and pain could come from a twelve-year-old boy.

She folded the music up and, without hesitation, threw it in the bin.

No way.


End file.
